Milstein Hall is the first new building in over 100
years for the renowned College of Architecture, Art and Planning
(AAP) at Cornell University.

The new building is situated between Cornell's historic Arts
Quad and the natural Falls Creek Gorge redefining the entry for the
northern end of the campus.

Formally the AAP was housed in four separate buildings, distinct
in architectural style and programmatic use but similar in
typology. Rather than creating a new free-standing building
Milstein Hall is an addition to the AAP buildings creating a
unified complex with continuous levels of indoor and outdoor
interconnected spaces.

Photo: Iwan Baan

We wanted to provide something currently absent from the
college, a space with the scale to facilitate collaboration. We
also saw an opportunity to reconnect the gorge to the north side of
the Arts Quad,

/Rem Koolhaas

A large horizontal plate is lifted off the (ground) and
connected to the second levels of the AAP's Sibley Hall and Rand
Hall to provide 25,000 square feet of studio space with panoramic
views of the surrounding environment.

Photo: Iwan Baan

Enclosed by floor-to-ceiling glass and a green roof with 41
skylights, this "upper plate" cantilevers almost 50 feet over
University Avenue to establish a relationship with the Foundry, a
third existing AAP facility. The wide-open expanse of the plate,
structurally supported by a hybrid truss system, stimulates
interaction and allows flexible use over time.

Photo: Iwan Baan

Photo: Iwan Baan

Beneath the hovering studio plate, the ground level accommodates
major program elements including the 253-seat auditorium and a dome
that encloses a 5,000 square foot circular critique space.

Photo: Iwan Baan

Photo: Iwan Baan

From the main entry, a concrete bridge spanning 70 feet across
the dome space draws people into the auditorium or brings them down
the sculptural stairs to the lower level of Milstein Hall. The
bridge's structural concrete truss railing and stair allow the
bridge to span across the dome column free.

Photo: Iwan Baan

Photo: Iwan Baan

Photo: Iwan Baan

The materiality of the lower level, constructed of exposed
cast-in-place concrete, adds a contrast to the upper plate's glass
and steel character. However both spaces create frameworks of raw
spaces to serve as a pedagogical platform for the AAP to generate
new interaction driven by the students' and faculty's ambitions and
explorations.

Milstein Hall provides the AAP its first auditorium and large
scale lecture hall within its own facilities. The auditorium was
designed to provide maximum flexibility to allow a multiplicity of
programs and functions to occur. The auditorium is divided into two
halves of fixed seats on the raked section of the dome and loose
seats on the level section. When the auditorium is not used at its
full capacity of 300 people, the lower level can be used for studio
critiques and smaller meetings.

Photo: Iwan Baan

Photo: Iwan Baan

Photo: Iwan Baan

The glass-enclosed auditorium provides a permeable boundary
between academic space and the public. When privacy or blackout is
required, a custom designed curtain unfurls from the auditorium
balcony in one continuous form.

The additional space provided by Milstein Hall enabled a new
master plan of the College's facilities creating extraordinary new
spatial relationships between internal programmatic elements.

The building is expected to receive a Silver LEED certification
with the possibility of achieving Gold.